Does It Pay off to Demonstrate Against the Far Right?

Abstract: We study whether demonstrating against a party can affect election results. To do so, we use the demonstrations that were held on May 1, 2002 in France, between the two rounds of a presidential election where far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen competed against right of center incumbent Jacques Chirac. Around 350 demonstrations took place across France on the same day to call for a mobilization against the far right. Using variation in rainfall as an exogenous source of variation in rally attendance, we find that a larger number of partici-pants reduced the number of votes of Jean-Marie Le Pen and the number of invalid ballots, and increased the number of votes for Jacques Chirac. We further observe that the effects of demonstrations were not limited to the municipalities in which they took place but also af-fected the outcomes of other municipalities. Regarding possible mechanisms, we provide suggestive evidence that demonstrations signaled that voting for the far right was socially unacceptable and changed voters’ perceptions of Le Pen’s policies.